


you've turned me upside down (and that's okay)

by midnightroom



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crushes, F/F, anyway skamfr is so good and emma and manon are super gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-18 23:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13691649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightroom/pseuds/midnightroom
Summary: Emma hates Spanish class until Manon sits next to her.(Or, a rewrite of the Spanish class scene in 1x02.)





	you've turned me upside down (and that's okay)

**Author's Note:**

> hi!
> 
> i started watching skam france and emma and manon are amazing and like. hm. gfs
> 
> so this is a rewrite of the spanish class scene in 1x02 except gayer! (although let's be real....they were plenty in love in the actual scene anyway)
> 
> enjoy! <3

Emma sits in her Spanish classroom and fiddles with her 0.7 mechanical pencil.

She _hates_ this class. There's something about it that makes her feel sort of sick to her stomach. Maybe it's that she's not particularly good at Spanish, and the memories of straining to answer the teacher's rapid-fire questions haunt her. Maybe it's because the room is clinically bare except for a few boring posters on the back wall.

Or maybe it's that she feels that way just about all the time these days, rattling around the campus aimlessly in her thick layers of scarves and trying to keep herself together, shoulders stiff and eyes down and stomach eternally knotted up.

She even feels agitated around Yann lately. They don't fit cleanly around the edges anymore, and that's probably the worst part of it all.

 _Pathetic_ , she thinks, and snaps her pencil lead clean in half.

She bends down in her chair as it rolls right off the edge of the desk and onto the scuffed linoleum floor. Someone enters the class through the open door as she's scanning the floor for it, a figure that looks like a gray blur when she half-notices it from the corner of her eye.

She lifts her gaze away from the broken lead lying sorrowfully on the ground and— _Oh._

It's Manon.

She's looking down at her phone and walking towards the back of the room, towards Emma, and for a second Emma's heart leaps in her chest.

Then she stops and pulls out a chair two tables in front of her. Emma feels herself sink down in her chair, oddly let down.

 _Don't be so stupid_ , she berates herself. They spoke once at a party and they're just Facebook friends. It's not as though they'd suddenly be sitting together in all their classes and having sleepovers at each other's houses.

But still, Emma can't help but stare at the back of Manon's head as she settles at the desk, bent over the glow of her phone.

Her hair is short and wavy and it looks so, so soft. Emma has a sudden urge to reach her arm out and run her fingers through the silky strands, see if it's really as soft as it looks. She wonders what shampoo Manon uses. Probably something organic and vanilla- or coconut-scented. Something bright and pleasant, like her.

A guy walks into the class and swings easily into the seat next to Manon. He's wearing a denim jacket that's definitely too thin for how cold it is outside, and Emma can't even remember his name. Thomas? Theo?

"Salut," he greets Manon.

Manon lifts her head and stares at him for a second too long before making a sound that's probably supposed to be a giggle. It sounds strained and insincere, Emma notes with a strange sense of satisfaction.

Then Manon twists around her seat and smiles directly at her, like they're sharing an inside joke. It's a small, amused smile that says "Isn't this dumb?"

 _It is_ , Emma thinks. _Definitely._

She smiles back and her heart does an unprompted pitter-patter that she firmly ignores.

Then Manon airily whispers "Salut," to Thomas/Theo, grabs her bag off the floor, and squeezes her way past his chair to the table where Emma is sitting alone.

"May I sit?" she asks, as if Emma could _possibly_ say no to her.

"Sure," says Emma. Her heart does something funny again.

"Cool, thanks," she says, and smiles at Emma as she sits down in the chair beside her, shuffling in her bag for her pencil-case. She is a welcome presence at Emma's side, solid and kind and wearing a heavy gray coat that she peels off to reveal a stupidly endearing white cardigan. It's almost like something Emma's grandmother would wear, but on her it looks oddly stylish and put-together and—cute.

Emma feels exhilarated, like she's won a competition she didn't even know she was competing in until just now.

Then the rest of the class pours in, followed by their teacher, and the excitement swooping in her stomach dissipates just as fast as it came.

"Buenos días a todos," the teacher says at the board. _Hello, everyone._

Manon turns to Emma as the classes choruses their hellos and flashes her a reassuring smile. She hadn't thought Manon had noticed how tense she was, but the gesture makes her smile right back.

The teacher announces something, and it's too fast for her to catch anything but the word _tarea._ Homework. 

"Wait. There was homework?" she asks Manon.

"Yeah," says Manon, her eyes soft and apologetic under the harsh classroom lights.

"Shit," Emma swears under her breath, flipping through her textbook frantically. She doesn't even know what page it was they had to read. Maybe the teacher won't notice—

The teacher notices, of course. She always does.

"Emma?" she calls.

_Shit, shit, shit._

"Qué hace el personaje principal de la historia, por favor?"

Emma fumbles to translate it in her mind.  _What does the main character of the story do, please?_

 _Good question_ , she thinks, on the verge of panicking.

Under the table, Manon gently kicks at her foot. "She feels lonely," she whispers in Spanish, sniffing and pretending to rub at her nose when Emma glances up at her.

"Ella se siente sola," Emma parrots, a rush of gratitude flooding her ribcage. _Thank you_ , she thinks vehemently and hopes that Manon is telepathic, that she gets it somehow.

The teacher knits her eyebrows together and frowns at both of them disapprovingly. "Manon, don't try to answer questions for Emma."

Emma deflates in her chair, guilt panging at her chest. Manon's gotten in trouble because of—no,  _for—_ her. She searches desperately for the words to explain that it was all her fault when Manon motions towards her with her pen.

"She hasn't done her homework," Manon tells the teacher coolly, in impeccable Spanish. "I was only trying to help a friend in need. I'm sorry."

Emma widens her eyes when the teacher glares at them and finally turns away. It's downright impressive how fluent she is. ( _She called you her friend_ , something inside her giddily points out. _Her friend_.)

"Um, I lived in Madrid before coming here," Manon explains, looking amused at the bewilderment written across Emma's face. "That's why."

"Ah, okay."

"I don't know many people yet, and…it's not easy to make friends when you arrive in the middle of the year, actually," says Manon.

 _I'm your friend. I'll be your friend_ , Emma thinks.

"Yeah," she says instead, nodding in a way she hopes is sympathetic. 

Manon sizes her up wordlessly. "What about you, what's your excuse?"

"For what?" Emma says, taken aback.

"For not having friends?"

 _Oh_.

Emma's thought process works like this: first comes the burning shame that threatens to manifest itself as a blush, because this means that Manon has already noticed how decidedly lame and disappointing she is and will probably unfriend her on Facebook and _never_ talk to her again. Then comes the ridiculous glee because—Manon has noticed something. Has noticed _her_. It means that it hasn't just been Emma searching for her since the party, craning her neck in the library in hopes of spotting Manon's signature red lipstick, scrolling on her Facebook page and trying to find out who she hangs out with. It means they've been watching for each other from afar this whole time, and it makes Emma feel warm and pleased and her heartbeat speed up in a way she doesn't bother denying.

But Manon is still looking at her and waiting for a response, and Emma finally jolts out of her thoughts and blurts the first thing that pops in her head.

"Strong body odor?"

She's an _idiot_.

But Manon just nods and says "Oh yeah, I see." Her voice wavers and her perfectly lined red lips twitch upwards as she holds back a laugh. "That's not great."

"It's hard," Emma agrees. She stares down at the clean white expanse of the desk and tries not to grin, but when Manon looks at her and smiles widely and the sunlight from the window lights her up just so, Emma can't help it.

She grins right back at her, and maybe Spanish class isn't so terrible after all.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is always appreciated! <3
> 
> commentaires est toujours appréciée! <3


End file.
